Valentino Rossi leads Ducati one-two in Silverstone MotoGP practice

The Ducati rider had led the field during the first half of the session as the weather conditions restricted riders from dipping below the 2m23s bracket.

But as the light rain eased and eventually stopped in the final 10 minutes, times improved by around four seconds. That allowed Rossi to knock his team-mate Nicky Hayden off the top spot by 0.077 seconds with a time of 2m19.328s.

Andrea Dovizioso was another to set a late flyer, the Tech 3 Yamaha rider snatching third after the chequered flag and knocking the Honda of world champion Casey Stoner back to fourth.

Dovizioso's British team-mate Cal Crutchlow briefly held the top spot with eight minutes remaining, but fell back to fifth at the end. He was followed by Stefan Bradl's LCR Honda, Dani Pedrosa's factory example and the Yamaha of world championship leader Jorge Lorenzo.

Gresini Honda rider Alvaro Bautista was ninth, despite crashing at Stowe with nine minutes remaining - just a minute after Ben Spies high-sided his Yamaha at the same place. Hector Barbera completed the top 10 on his Pramac Ducati with Randy de Puniet the best of the CRT riders in 12th on his Aspar Aprilia.

Only 11 MotoGP prototypes are in the field, as Cardion Ducati's Karel Abraham has been forced to sit out the event due to a hand injury from testing.

Pos  Rider             Team/Bike                 Time       Gap
 1.  Valentino Rossi   Ducati                    2m19.328s
 2.  Nicky Hayden      Ducati                    2m19.405s  + 0.077s
 3.  Andrea Dovizioso  Tech 3 Yamaha             2m20.127s  + 0.799s
 4.  Casey Stoner      Honda                     2m20.321s  + 0.993s
 5.  Cal Crutchlow     Tech 3 Yamaha             2m21.263s  + 1.935s
 6.  Stefan Bradl      LCR Honda                 2m21.917s  + 2.589s
 7.  Dani Pedrosa      Honda                     2m22.713s  + 3.385s
 8.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha                    2m23.174s  + 3.846s
 9.  Alvaro Bautista   Gresini Honda             2m23.326s  + 3.998s
10.  Hector Barbera    Pramac Ducati             2m24.150s  + 4.822s
11.  Ben Spies         Yamaha                    2m24.214s  + 4.886s
12.  Randy de Puniet   Aspar Aprilia             2m24.360s  + 5.032s
13.  Mattia Pasini     Speed Master Aprilia      2m24.390s  + 5.062s
14.  Danilo Petrucci   Ioda-Aprilia              2m25.012s  + 5.684s
15.  Michele Pirro     Gresini FTR-Honda         2m25.051s  + 5.723s
16.  Aleix Espargaro   Aspar Aprilia             2m25.065s  + 5.737s
17.  James Ellison     Paul Bird Aprilia         2m25.150s  + 5.822s
18.  Yonny Hernandez   Avintia FTR-Kawasaki      2m25.298s  + 5.970s
19.  Ivan Silva        Avintia Inmotec-Kawasaki  2m28.615s  + 9.287s
20.  Colin Edwards     Forward Suter-BMW         2m31.468s  + 12.140s